Celebrity news from Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith

Tag Archives: Fox

There’s nothing like aiming high. Nashville-based therapist and life coach Miles Adcox says that when it comes to dealing with the personal problems of real-life people on TV in a non-exploitative way, “the best example of that, who was great at it, is Oprah Winfrey — and anybody who is even thinking about doing a talk show uses her as a reference.”

He’s certainly had occasion to do more than just think about Oprah of late. Come July 14, the handsome wellness workshop entrepreneur and entertainment industry favorite will be seen co-hosting Fox’s new “The Daily Helpline” with radio advice talk show host Spirit. Everyday folks with problems from overcoming abuse to battling cancer, coping with teen pregnancy to confronting sexual woes show up in person in the studio, or contact Adcox and Spirit via social media.

(Requests were already streaming in weeks ago.) Celebrities including Marie Osmond, Tom Green, TLC’s Tionne Watkin, Loni Love, Tabatha Coffey and Brandy guest in segments to weigh in with their own opinions and experience.

So there is quite a bit of potential for exploitation — depending upon how the show is done.

Adcox admits, “The therapy world is often scared of the media world and vice versa, because we feel like media is about sensationalism and we don’t want to do that. But the truth is we can reach way more people with a media platform than we could ever do one person at a time in our office, so that’s why I wanted to be involved” — in a healthy, Oprah-esque way.

“She didn’t come across as another expert dropping advice from 10,000 feet and hoping something would change. She was real. She was vulnerable. She connected with people,” Adcox points out. “And people had healing experiences on her show because of how good a listener she was. I haven’t seen that recreated since she left, and that’s what I’m excited about — stepping in in a way that can help people. I believe there is an audience interested in seeing human connection, and seeing real people helping real people and holding people in pain.”

Real people in New York, L.A., Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina will be able to see “The Daily Helpline” test run on TV. Elsewhere, viewers are being invited to sample via YouTube. A week’s worth of shows are in the can and more are being shot.

Adcox, who has guested on a number of shows in the past, including “The Doctors” and “Dr. Phil,” says he was initially asked to come in and help vet prospective hosts for “The Daily Helpline.” However, as the weeks went by, he went from being asked about other candidates to being asked how he would feel about taking on the hosting chores himself.

“It wasn’t my dream to do this, but it’s a neat opportunity for me to step into,” he says.

According to him, the celebs involved so far have been taking to the show as a neat opportunity as well. “Daily Helpline,” he says, is “not there to get the dirt on movie star. These celebrities are coming and sitting in our chairs to share an experience in order to help someone else. I was surprised — the few I had relationships with that I asked about doing the show, it wasn’t a hard ask. They were pleasantly excited about it.”

He says that Tom Green, for example, “was able to help someone probably more than we were because they were going through same experience Tom had and he was able to share how he got through it.”

That particular episode had to do with cancer and its accompanying stresses on personal and work relationships. Green, a testicular cancer survivor, has been a guiding light for countless men going through that ordeal for since his own battle in 2000.

Mary Murphy says she’s finally getting over the respiratory irritation she was left with after a brush fire near her home in Carlsbad, California — a fire that took out eight houses in her neighborhood.

“My voice is a little bit hoarse still, but I ran up the stairs yesterday, so that’s a good sign,” says the energetic “So You Think You Can Dance” mainstay. She’s also firmed her resolve to be better prepared in case of another emergency. This one definitely did not find her ready.

“Oh my gosh, I’ve never experienced anything like that before in my life!” she exclaims. “I thought, ‘My house smells like fire,’ and I walked out and saw blue sky…Then I turned around and I could not believe what I saw — billowing black smoke coming right over the house. It wasn’t even on TV yet. We weren’t even being evacuated. It came so fast! It was 101 degrees that day, and I was just running around my house – I know it was ridiculous. The first thing I grabbed was at least 10 dresses that I had bought for the show, and I started getting my shoes, one pair of every color. Then I started searching for my mother’s rings that meant the world to me. My pictures were not in one location…And of course I couldn’t even get my car out of the garage. The electricity just went out. I went into full panic.”

Mary found her hillside street full of neighbors making their way down. Some of them helped her get her garage door open. Now, she says, she and her neighbors are making a point of communicating with one another, and of being better prepared. She’s keeping a tank of drinking water outside her house and getting other supplies.

She recalls going back to her house after the blaze was extinguished to see if it was okay and also to protect it in case of looters. But she admits, “I have no idea what that means. How could I have stopped anyone from stealing from me anyway?! I had one camping lantern and some candles!” She laughs. “I realized one camping lantern wasn’t enough. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t stay. Then the next day we were evacuated again. I never unpacked my car, just re-packed it a little better.”

Considering other events in the life of the unsinkable dancer/choreographer — her successful 2011 battle with thyroid cancer, her drive to get back into shape following that, her legal fight with a former manager — her close call with a wildfire wasn’t so bad.

“So You Think You Can Dance” continues to be an uplifting experience for her in Season 11. “I don’t care what’s happening in your life, you see those kids dance and it’s all-engulfing. You just breathe it in, and you watch them soar and you know how very, very difficult it really is – what we’re asking of them. I’m just so in awe every season. And it does seem to be better and better, and the bar gets raised,” she notes.

She finds that many of the young hopefuls are coming in well-prepared in recent seasons. “A lot of them are ready, but there are still a lot of kids like Cyrus (“Glitch” Spencer) a couple of seasons ago. They’d love to come ready, but they don’t have the financial means. So it’s really cool to see those kids excel, too.”

As for this year’s crop, Mary says there are more contenders out of the ballroom world — her background — than there have been in five or six years. But as far as who will be named to the top 20, this time, “Even we don’t know,” she says. “Because of the way they’re doing it this year, they were able to keep that a secret from us.”

If the brotherly relationships at the core of Fox’s new “Enlisted” ring true,there is good reason. According to star Geoff Stults, not only are the show’s main three characters “based loosely — or, make that pretty directly” on creator Kevin Biegel and his brothers, but Stults and his on-screen freres, Chris Lowell and Parker Young, also each grew up with brothers.

Now, says Stults with a laugh, “I treat those guys like my brother treated me. I’m a little brother in real life, but I get to treat Chris and Parker like mylittle brothers. I always wanted a little brother, but I never got one until they handed me Chris and Parker.

“Chris and I have that interesting dynamic where we don’t have a ton of the
same interests, but we just like being around each other. Parker and I are a
little more similar, personality-wise, and Chris is like your typical middle
brother,” he adds. “It’s weird, but I wouldn’t love Parker half as much as I do
if it weren’t for Chris being there, and the same thing with Chris. Those guys,
to me, they’re like a package deal.”

“Enlisted” could be the series for Stults. The handsome and charming actor, who
was born in Detroit, raised in Green Mountain, Co., and cut his teeth as a
performer at California’s Whittier College, has certainly done the series number
before. He was a regular on “7th Heaven,” “October Road” and “Happy Town” and as
star of Fox’s short-lived 2012 “Bones” spin-off, “The Finder.” Now he has the
same network behind his new comedy, about a war veteran who finds himself on a
stateside base in charge of a unit that includes his siblings, a pair of
mess-ups.

They’re cute and funny enough to surmount obstacles including disbelief. Hey,
it’s a comedy. Make that a comedy that’s earning some laudatory reviews. While
Stults is not lighting celebratory fireworks or anything like that as yet, he
does have reason for optimism.

“I’ve been doing this enough now to realize that I have a pretty solid group
assembled around me — or, that I am one of a pretty solid group,” he says.
“Kevin Biegel was looking for a way to do a family story, and he also comes from
a military family — and it just kind of worked.” He’s enjoying working with
Biegel and fellow executive producer Mike Royce, “who are just about the nicest
guys in the business, which is great, but you need them to be talented, too, and
good at their jobs, and they are.”

“Enlisted” has also been termed a throwback to old school military sitcoms. Its
pilot engendered a certain amount of skepticism.

“You’re never going to make everyone happy.” Stults shrugs. “Critics are
critics and there are those that are particularly sensitive about the military
— and they should be. So should the military themselves. But the people who
were nervous about the pilot have seen subsequent episodes and realized that not
only have we not poked fun at the military, but we’ve gone out of our way to
show respect. I’ve heard people say they watched the trailer and hated it but
now that they’ve seen the episodes, they like it. This is a trend. It’s not just
a couple people.”

He goes on, “No. 1, we had to find the funny. Otherwise, we’re not talking
right now because we didn’t get picked up by Fox. And No. 2, we want to do right
by our servicemen and women, obviously. We wouldn’t be here talking if it wasn’t
for them, either.

“At the end of the day, it’s a family dramedy and it’s a workplace comedy set
at a military base. That’s a large workplace. There’s a lot of funny @#!$ that
happens in workplaces there are a lot of mundane silly things that happen in
workplaces, and a lot of relationship dynamics in workplaces — any workplaces.
As long as the military realizes that we’re not poking fun at them, they’re
going to enjoy it.”

He says, “I don’t worry about timeslots about lead-ins or anything like
that. We can only control what we can control — that’s what happened between
episode one and episode 13. We had a great time, we feel like we delivered a
great product. I love going to work and just laughing. Working with Parker and
Chris and Keith David and the rest of the cast, I feel like I hit the lottery.”